The rigour–relevance gap in professional programmes

Abstract

The tension between the rigour and the relevance of higher education research remains an important and hotly contested topic among scholars, administrators, practitioners and policymakers. This debate is most evident in professional programmes in which scholars are challenged to pursue new knowledge independent of its immediate relevance to practice while simultaneously contributing actionable knowledge to their profession. This two-part study explores whether the resulting pressure has an impact on the scholarly output and recruitment practices of different professional programmes. The results show that the context of the profession has a significant influence on the level of integration between academia and industry.

Keywords

Higher education relevance knowledge dissemination professional programmes recruitment socialization

The tension between the rigour and the relevance of higher education research remains an important and hotly contested topic among scholars, administrators, practitioners and policymakers (Nicolaidis and Michalopoulos, 2004; Perna, 2016). The frontline of this debate is the growing role of professional programmes in higher education. On the one hand, scholars are expected to experiment freely with new ideas, independent of their immediate practical relevance (Heracleous, 2011), while professional programmes in their universities are expected to create useful or actionable knowledge (AACSB, 2008; Heracleous, 2011). Peng and Dess (2010), Certo et al. (2010) and O’Brien et al. (2010) make compelling arguments associated with the important role of theory-driven scholarship. Kieser and Leiner (2009) extend this by arguing that science and practice are two distinct systems which are philosophically ‘unbridgeable’. The core of their argument is that modern society is founded on highly specialized and autonomous systems, each defined by accepted norms and practices. They note (2009: 6) that ‘[s]cience is a “closed system”, but one that through closure boosts its energy instead of losing it’. ‘Practice systems’, on the other hand, are founded on organizations embedded in autopoietic economic systems. Being embedded in a practice system means that practitioners’

[…] decision style is most often not that of a reflective analyst. They ‘prefer acting to abstract thinking’ (Isenberg, 1984) and basing their actions on subjective models which contain principles that reflect their experience. They do not consider intuitive decision-making inferior to scientific rational decision-making. (Kieser and Leiner, 2009: 6)

On the other side of the debate are scholars who argue that science and practice are not autonomous systems, but are interdependent (Perna, 2016). For example, Pettigrew (1997) suggests that there should be a ‘double hurdle’ of research requiring a simultaneous concern for scholarly quality and practical relevance, which necessitates the involvement of non-academic partners at every stage of the research production cycle (Pettigrew, 2008). With regard to management scholars, Pettigrew (2001: S61) concludes that they must (i) communicate with practitioners to identify relevant research problems, (ii) think of practitioners as prospective recipients when conducting research and (iii) make efforts to convince practitioners of the usefulness of their research. Some scholars contend that differences in logics between academics and practitioners can be generative, contributing to positive research outcomes (cf. Beech et al., 2010; Perna, 2016; Shrivastava and Mitroff, 1984). Moreover, Hambrick (2007: 1346) strongly argues that the increasing insistence on theory-driven scholarship ‘retards our ability to achieve our end: understanding’. To further the debate, even if rigour and relevance are both achieved, there is still the problem of knowledge transfer or dissemination (Perna, 2016): that is, whether there is an inability or unwillingness on the part of academic researchers to translate their insights for practitioners (Gulati, 2007).

To date, the different proponents have focused primarily on normative justifications, with limited attention to understanding the macro- and micro-level institutional forces shaping the gap. Our current research focuses on exploring these forces at both the macro and micro levels. We challenge the conclusion of Kieser and Leiner (2009) that science and practice are independent systems, thereby making both rigour and relevance impossible to achieve. We show that productive engagement between science and practice exists on a continuum, and the position of a discipline on the continuum is determined by institutional forces ranging from macro-level variables (institutional mission, discipline and profession) to micro-level variables (academic training and practitioner experience).

Professional programmes hold a unique place in the academy, in that they are expected to engage two distinct environments – their academic institution and their associated profession(s) (Dinham and Evans, 1991). Herein, we define a ‘profession’ as possessing three critical dimensions: (i) Members have completed an appropriate and prescribed level of academic training, (ii) they possess a minimum level of experience in their professional field and (iii) they must be certified/licensed by a professional society to practise in their field (Freidson, 1994; Martin and Shell, 1988; Shapero, 1985). We use the unique case of the professional programme to explore the rigour and relevance debate. Discussions of the balance of rigour and relevance in academic research should include an analysis of the different macro and micro institutional forces that are acting on professional programmes, as well as an understanding of how different professional programmes respond to these tensions. We propose that macro isomorphic pressures at the university and programme levels, combined with micro-level socialization, influence how and where a scholar chooses to disseminate his or her research (Aguinis et al., 2014; Anderson, 1996; Gardner, 2009). In turn, we question whether the knowledge dissemination (KD) outcomes of faculty are a direct result of professional programmes being housed in universities or whether there are additional factors directly related to a specific faculty or profession. We suggest that the choice of whether to disseminate the output knowledge to other academics or to target practising professionals is also influenced by more specific isomorphic pressures, such as the value that faculties place on academic training, practitioner experience and recruitment practices. Thus, our study is guided by two research questions:

What macro- and micro-level forces shape the KD practices of business scholars?

Do these factors influence the KD practices in other social science–based professional disciplines?

We suggest that answering these questions will provide guidance as to whether or not the gap between relevance and rigour is unbridgeable. To answer them, we conduct a two-part study. The first part examines the macro- and micro-level variables that may influence KD outcomes, while the second builds on the first and analyses how this context influences the criteria for the recruitment of new faculty.

Conceptual development

The structural relationship between universities and professions goes back centuries. The learned professions, such as medicine and law, were the academic foundation of the world’s oldest institutions, including the University of Bologna¹ and Oxford University.² In the first half of the 20th century, universities in Canada and the United States expanded their professional programmes dramatically to include disciplines such as engineering, architecture, nursing and accounting (Perk, 1993). The raison d’être of professional programmes is to develop knowledge that advances the practice of their respective professions (Tranfield and Starkey, 1998; Van de Ven and Johnson, 2006).

Rigorous versus relevant research

The ‘rigour versus relevance’ debate has been a dominant theme in management literature since the release of the Gordon–Howell Report in 1959. Scholarly knowledge has been, with some controversy, divided into two modes: Mode 1 is theory-centric knowledge that serves the academic community, while mode 2 focuses on application and addresses broader communities, such as professional practitioners (Gibbons et al., 1994). A parallel categorization of knowledge is according to the purpose for which it is pursued – academics pursue the development of scientific knowledge while practitioners search for solutions to everyday problems and assign value to contextual experience and prescription (Kanter and Eccles, 1992; Powell and Owen-Smith, 1998; Van de Ven and Johnson, 2006). Scholars describe rigorous research as discipline-specific research questions originating in the social sciences, which are then examined and tested using controlled methodologies and systematic data analysis (Gulati, 2007). In addition, rigorous research possesses a singular goal of building generalizations and theories that take the form of formal logical principles or rules involving causal relationships between constructs (Aram and Salipante, 2003) (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Rigour versus relevance.

	Low relevance	High relevance
High rigour	Research conducted by academics Intended audience is other academics Dominant form of KD in PRJs	Application of academic frameworks to practitioner problems Intended audience is both academics and practitioners Dominant form of KD is books
Low rigour		Active engagement in practice Intended audience is practising professionals Dominant forms of KD include consulting, executive education and practitioner-oriented publications

KD: knowledge dissemination.

The peer review process is a critical element in the claim that a particular piece of research is rigorous (Perna, 2016). It is widely recognized in academia that peer-reviewed journal (PRJ) publications are the primary outlet for scholarly research (Adler and Harzing, 2009). The importance of this outlet is often formalized in areas such as tenure and promotion criteria (Bennis and O’Toole, 2005). The quality of a specific PRJ is assessed through mechanisms such as journal ranking systems (Adler and Harzing, 2009). Additionally, citation counts provide evidence that a scholar has influenced the scholarly discourse in his or her field (Aguinis et al., 2014).

Scholars argue that rigorous research shifts towards relevant research as it explores phenomena in organizational settings, searches for a solution rather than general principles (Gulati, 2007) and adopts new methodologies and forms of theoretical development (Pettigrew, 2001). As research shifts from reduced rigour to increased relevance, researchers explore how business successes or failures are reconstructed to align with existing academic thinking (Nicolai, 2004). This type of research involves inductive, case-oriented and anecdotal reasoning based on background scholarly knowledge (e.g. Porter’s (1980) competitive strategy or Hamel and Prahalad’s (1994) core competencies (Nicolai, 2004)). The more successful and relevant research typically stems from effectively labelling a theoretical construct, frames opportunities for practitioners to self-design interventions based on research findings (Mohrman et al., 2001) and leads to integrative solutions to narrowly defined problems.

KD outlets for rigorous and relevant research include books, reports, policy documents and PRJs that focus on the application of research findings to practitioner problems. Books may target academics, practitioners (including students) or both (Griffith et al., 2008). The importance of books for scholarly work is highly dependent on the discipline, with faculty members in some disciplines expected to publish a book to earn career progression (Townsend, 2004), while in other disciplines books are ranked below all other KD outlets (see Table 1).

Relevant research with relatively low rigour is based on communicating to practising professionals by effectively addressing factors that are under the manager’s control, highlighting concrete and measurable consequences of these variables and identifying clear trade-offs among them (Van de Ven and Johnson, 2006). Relevant research provides opportunities for engagement (negotiation and collaboration) between practitioners and academics and/or self-designed actions based on the research findings (Mohrman et al., 2001; Perna, 2016) and offers managers integrative solutions to narrowly defined problems. Dissemination for relevant research includes areas such as faculty engagement in collaborative research projects with practitioners, paid industry consulting activity, paid board appointments or being active in practitioner-centric media (e.g. industry trade publications) and executive education (Bekkers and Bodas Freitas, 2008) (see Table 1).

Institutional influences on rigour and relevance

Scholars have used institutional theory to explore how macrostructures impact organizational behaviour. Yet critics (Lawrence and Suddaby, 2006; Rusch and Wilbur, 2007) have argued that one of the flaws of institutional theory is its tendency to discount the role of the individual. Lawrence and Suddaby (2006) contend that institutional theory must incorporate the microprocesses of individuals who influence institutional outcomes. The growing appreciation of the role of the individual in institutional theory has been highlighted by Maguire and Hardy (2009), Lok and De Rond (2013) and Micolotta and Washington (2013). Consequently, in this two-part exploratory study, we examine the influence of different macro-level variables (i.e. university mission) and micro-level variables (i.e. academic training, practitioner experience) across four professional programmes. These variables are considered subsequently.

Influence of professions

Professionalism is a unique form of occupational control of work that has distinct advantages over political, bureaucratic and market forms of control (Freidson, 1994). Scholars have explored the definition and role of professions from a variety of perspectives (Dinham and Evans, 1991). Following Goode (1957), we highlight the minimum structural attributes that must be present if one is to label an occupation a profession. First, a profession is founded on a recognized, valued and codified body of knowledge (Abbott, 1988). Second, a profession incorporates the practical application of this specialized knowledge (Abbott, 1988; Langbert, 2005). Third, a profession consolidates power in an independent professional body which possesses the exclusive social licence to assign professional legitimacy to both individuals and institutions. That social licence is forthcoming only after undertaking a distinct ‘professionalization project’ that usually involves a negotiation with government whereby assurances are provided by a nascent profession to pursue the highest interests of society in exchange for allowing ‘social closure’ or monopoly (Abbott, 1988; Larson, 1977). Building on this, Wilensky (1964) identified a sequence of activities that transform a simple occupation into a profession. These include educational activities (e.g. founding of a training school and a university programme), the establishment of a professional association (e.g. establishing a local and national association), the passing of regional- and national-level laws and regulations and the establishment of a professional code of ethics.

Therefore, any occupation that wishes to achieve professional autonomy while exercising professional judgement must do so from a defensible knowledge base when making jurisdictional claims (Abbott, 1988). The inclusion of professional programmes in universities created the space and legitimacy for the development of a defensible knowledge base that incorporated both abstract and concrete knowledge. At the same time, it also created obligations on these institutions and the faculty. Universities assumed a gatekeeping role for professions by accepting students and awarding professional degrees and assumed a central role in persuading the broader public of a profession’s value and authority (Abbott, 1988; Dinham and Evans, 1991; Larson, 1977).

In the context of this two-part study, we chose a sample of four professions that meet these three criteria: accounting, finance, law and social work. In addition, we also include an analysis of nine ‘other’ programmes that are housed within business programmes but do not meet the minimum ‘profession’ criteria. These other programmes are management, marketing, human resources, organizational theory, international business, entrepreneurship, hospitality, information systems and technology and operations management/supply chain management.³ See Table 1A for a comparison of the requirements of the four professions included in the study with two sample occupations (marketing and human resources) which do not meet the ‘profession’ threshold.

Institutional mission

Universities make public commitments through vision and mission statements, which are also intended to guide all departments, programmes and academics in the institution as to the primary research orientation (Gardner, 2009; Rusch and Wilbur, 2007). One way professional programmes support the success of their institution is to engage in KD practices that support its vision/mission. While universities adopt a variety of different forms, most can be roughly categorized into one of three types of mission – research-intensive, comprehensive or undergraduate. Institutions with a research-intensive orientation offer a broad set of doctoral programmes and the research of their faculty is expected to be published in ranked PRJs (Fram and Lau, 1996; Long et al., 1998). As the Boyer Commission states, ‘because of the research universities’ commitment to create new knowledge, they consider research capability as a primary qualification for appointment, promotion, and tenure of faculty members’. Undergraduate universities, on the other hand, have a mission to provide a high-quality learning environment for their students. Teaching expectations for faculty members are high and there is limited access to graduate research assistants, both of which factors can limit the opportunity to conduct top-quality research. In comprehensive universities, the mission is a balanced focus on teaching and high-quality research, with a degree focus primarily at the bachelor’s and master’s levels.

Influence of faculty career socialization

Most doctoral programmes in many disciplines are rooted in academia rather than in practice (Baruch and Hall, 2004; Knights and Willmot, 1997). Thus, the reputations of scholars are built through scholarship that aligns with the mandates of discipline-based academic journals which publish work that exhibits theoretical and methodological sophistication over application and relevance (Bailey and Ford, 1996). Bennis and O’Toole (2005: 100) identify the focus on PRJ publications in business programmes:

a management professor who publishes rigorously executed studies in the highly quantitative Administrative Science Quarterly is considered a star, while an academic whose articles appear in the accessible pages of a professional review – which is much more likely to influence business practices – risks being denied tenure.

The value of academic training as a critical factor in building and maintaining a scholarly foundation is perceived in most disciplines (Gardner, 2009; Hughes et al., 2011; Thurgood et al., 2006). For example, in business, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) defines a terminal degree as an essential requirement ‘…intended to produce scholars capable of creating scholarly contributions through advances in research or theory’ (AACSB, 2009: 5). Research demonstrates that graduate school training is a critical element in defining a scholar’s frame of reference (Chia and Holt, 2008). In the United States, the average management doctoral student spends 9 years in graduate school (NCES, 2012). Many argue that this level of academic socialization conditions faculty to value academic KD over other KD outlets. Therefore, we anticipate that the possession of a terminal degree will influence how and where a scholar chooses to disseminate his or her research.

At the same time, scholars argue that practitioner experiences influence the formation of ‘implicit theories’ that contribute to the sense-making and judgements of faculty (Bensimon, 2007: 446). Lorange (2012) argues that these experiences influence both the type of research and the dissemination outlets chosen by scholars with previous practitioner experiences. As noted, practitioners pursue contextually relevant solutions, whereas academics pursue theory development (Kanter and Eccles, 1992; Nicolai et al., 2011; Powell and Owen-Smith, 1998; Van de Ven and Johnson, 2006). Based on this, we anticipate that previous full-time practitioner experience in a professional field will influence how and where scholars choose to disseminate their research.

Study 1: KD in professional programmes

In this first study, we build on the work by Finch et al. (2017) and explore the influence of macro and micro institutional forces on faculty-level KD outcomes. To do so, we conduct a biographical analysis of tenured faculty (N = 1036) in the four professional programmes (accounting, finance, law and social work) from 24 Canadian universities.

Variables

The dependent variable is comprised of three KD outlets – PRJs, book publishing and active professional engagement. When tracking PRJ publications, we categorized faculty members as having 0, 1 to 3, or 4 or more publications. The major independent variable is faculty socialization (Finch et al., 2016a). Academically qualified (AQ) faculty are those who have earned a terminal degree in their discipline but have no full-time practitioner experience in their field prior to joining academia. Professionally qualified (PQ) faculty have experience in their profession but have not earned a terminal degree. Finally, following Bennis and O’Toole (2005) and Finch et al. (2017), bridge-qualified (BQ) faculty possess both a terminal degree and full-time practitioner experience in their field.⁴ Universities are classified as research-intensive, comprehensive or undergraduate (Statistics Canada, 2009). Finally, we also include a series of control variables in the study, including faculty rank, gender (Link et al., 2008) and career stage.⁵ Figure 1 displays our conceptual model.

Figure 1.

Influence of micro- and macro-level variables on faculty KD outcomes. KD: knowledge dissemination.

Sampling procedure

The sample for this study consisted of tenured and tenure-track faculty members in accounting, finance, law and social work schools in Canada. Following the research design of Dietz and Bozeman (2005), publicly available faculty biographical data were coded using content analysis. To ensure a consistent coding scheme, a code book (see Table 2) was developed to analyse the micro-level data in the sample (Dietz and Bozeman, 2005; Wu et al., 2010). The code book involved the collection of both quantitative and qualitative data in the following six categories:

Current professional information (faculty rank, discipline, career stage (pre- or post-tenure) and gender);

Academic training (highest degree conferred);

Full-time practitioner experience prior to the academic appointment (roles, title, organization, level and years of service);

PRJ publishing (quantity and quality);

Active practitioner engagement (collaborative research, consulting and board appointments);

Book publishing (full authorship, chapter authorship and editor).

Table 2.

Study 1: Coding criteria.

Variable	Measure
Dependent variables
Evidence of peer-reviewed publication (1–3 articles)	A faculty member was coded as having published in a PRJ if there were evidence they had published between 1 and 3 articles. No = 0; Yes = 1
Evidence of peer-reviewed publication (4+ articles)	A faculty member was coded as having published in a PRJ if there were evidence they had published four or more articles. No = 0; Yes = 1
Evidence of book publication	A faculty member was coded as being engaged in explicit KD through books (primary author, chapter author or editor) if there were a book listed in the biographical profile. No = 0; Yes = 1
Evidence of active engagement with their profession	A faculty member was coded as being actively engaged in their profession when there was evidence of industry engagement concurrent with their academic appointment (Bekkers and Bodas Freitas, 2008). This included two main forms of activities: (a) collaborative industry research and (b) consulting (e.g. expert witness appointments, board appointments and management consulting). No = 0; Yes = 1
Independent variables
Academic training	Defined as the highest academic credential awarded. 0 = No degree; 1 = Bachelor’s; 2 = Master’s; 3 = Other terminal; 4 = PhD
Full-time practitioner experience	Defined as evidence of full-time practitioner experience in the discipline (excluding internships and practicums) prior to current academic appointment. No = 0; Yes = 1
Institutional mission	The mission of a university was measured as one of three categories following Statistics Canada (2009) and the Carnegie Foundation (2014). Research-intensive: The first category (coded as 3) is composed of universities with a research-intensive orientation. This was defined for all schools who were members of the U15 group of universities (a formal association of the leading 15 research universities in Canada). Coded as 3. Comprehensive: The second category (coded as 2) consists of universities with what Statistics Canada (2009) define as a ‘comprehensive’ orientation, seeking to balance their focus on teaching and high-quality research. As a result, the degree focus for these schools is primarily at the bachelor’s and master’s levels. Coded as 2. Primarily Undergraduate: The third category (coded as 1) includes schools with a primarily teaching orientation and located at an undergraduate university (Statistics Canada, 2009). Coded as 1
Control variables
Gender	Male = 1. Female = 0
Career stage	Tenured = 1. Non-tenured = 0
Faculty rank	1, Lecturer; 2, Assistant Professor; 3, Associate Professor; 4, Full Professor; 5, Administrator

PRJ: peer-reviewed journal; KD: knowledge dissemination.

Following the multistage sampling methodology of Finch et al. (2017), we stratified our faculty sample based on geography and mission. In stage 1, we evaluated the availability of faculty biographical information for all accounting, finance, law and social work programmes at 4-year universities in Canada. To do so, three sample faculty biographies were randomly selected from every accounting, finance, law and social work programme in Canada. Two authors evaluated the faculty biographical data for each of the schools relative to the code book criteria. A programme was rated as ‘excellent’ if all three of the faculty members had a dedicated page and/or a link to a full curriculum vitae, and if these profiles provided information related to the micro-level variables incorporated in our code book. A total of 50 programmes were graded as having excellent or good micro-level data.

The next stage stratified the programmes based on geography (Finch et al., 2017; Palmer and Short, 2008) and strategic orientation. Each school was assigned to one of four regions: Western Canada, Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada – these regions are generally recognized. Next, the programmes in each region were assigned to one of the three university categories as defined by the Statistics Canada degree-based classification system (Statistics Canada, 2009): research-intensive universities (defined as a member of the U15 group of research schools), comprehensive universities and primarily undergraduate universities.

We then selected one school from each of the 12 subgroups based on the highest quality of information about faculty provided on the website, making a deliberate choice to have higher-quality data relative to other sampling criteria (Finch et al., 2017). Our final sample included 31 professional programmes at 24 different universities stratified by geography and mission. This included 13 universities that house accounting and finance programmes, 12 that house social work programmes and 6 that house law programmes.⁶ In this sample, 2 universities house all four professional programmes, 7 house three of the four programmes and 15 house at least one of the professional programmes. Given this sampling process, non-response bias was not a risk. In summary, this sample is inclusive, compared to other studies, which, as Hommel and Thomas (2014) identified, tend to oversample elite universities.

Two researchers then pilot-coded 10 faculty biographical profiles sourced from each of the programmes. They subsequently met to review the biographical coding to align on areas of inconsistency, following Dietz and Bozeman (2005). The pilot-coding yielded inter-coder reliability of 0.85, which is within the range of acceptability (Wong et al., 1995). A single researcher then coded all faculty members in the sample. Areas of coding inconsistency were reviewed weekly by the lead author. The final sample included 1036 tenured and tenure-track faculty, including accounting (n = 131), finance (n = 139), law (n = 200), social work (n = 197) and ‘other’ business (n = 470). To improve coding validity, we used Google Scholar to cross-reference our publication data (Finch et al., 2017; Harzing, 2013). If inconsistencies were located, the researchers used the Google Scholar data as representing the most up-to-date information.

We conducted our data analysis in two phases (Charlier et al., 2011). In phase 1, we did a univariate contingency analysis to test the difference (Near et al., 1978). In phase 2, we conducted three multivariate logistic regression analyses to explore the influence of the independent variables on each of the dependent variables (Charlier et al., 2011).

Results

In our final sample, the largest proportion of faculty (59.2%) were from research-intensive universities, compared to 26.6% from comprehensive universities and 14.2% from undergraduate universities.⁷ Males accounted for 60.1% of the sample. A total of 84.5% of the sample reported that they had a terminal degree and 67% were tenured. Full professors were the largest cohort at 32.3%, followed by associate professors at 31.1%. The majority of the sample (53.2%) was categorized as AQ faculty, 31.8% were BQ faculty and 14.3% were PQ. In total, 78.0% of the faculty had published in PRJs and 44.1% had been involved in book publishing. Finally, 26% were actively involved in their profession. Of the accounting faculty, 67.2% possessed a professional accounting designation. Of the finance faculty, 10.2% possessed the Certified Financial Analyst (CFA) designation. Table 3 summarizes the sample by discipline. Figure 2 compares the disciplines based on terminal degree and practitioner experience.

Figure 2.

Professional programme faculty qualifications.

Table 3.

Study 1: Sample profile (%).

Variable	Accounting	Finance	Law	Social work	‘Other’ business	Composite mean^a
Institutional mission
Research-intensive	52.7	66.9	78.5	61.9	49.4	61.9
Comprehensive	24.4	18.0	21.5	38.1	27.2	25.8
Primarily undergraduate	22.9	15.1	0.0	0.0	23.4	12.3
Gender
Female	37.4	23.7	41.5	67.0	33.4	40.6
Male	62.6	76.3	58.5	33.0	66.6	59.4
Title
Lecturer	22.9	10.8	2.5	3.6	8.7	9.7
Assistant	24.4	25.2	12.5	27.4	26.2	23.1
Associate	29.8	30.9	22.0	42.6	30.6	31.2
Full	19.8	27.3	54.0	23.4	31.7	31.2
Other	3.1	1.4	4.5	2.0	1.9	2.6
Terminal degree	64.9	84.2	89.0	92.4	84.9	83.1
Practitioner experience	53.4	38.1	48.5	56.6	40.6	47.4
Socialization category
AQ	46.6	61.9	46.0	44.2	59.4	51.6
PQ	35.1	15.8	10.5	5.6	15.1	16.4
BQ	18.3	22.3	43.5	50.3	25.5	26.9
Career stage
Tenured	52.7	59.7	85.0	69.0	64.7	66.2
Untenured	47.3	40.3	15.0	31.0	35.3	43.8
PRJ publication level
No publications	33.6	23.7	13.5	25.9	20.2	23.4
1–3 publications	25.9	22.3	19.0	18.3	16.4	20.3
>4 publications	40.5	54.0	67.5	55.8	63.4	56.2
Book publishing	22.9	18.1	71.5	56.3	40.7	41.9
Active professional engagement	16.8	13.7	28.5	44.9	23.2	25.4

Note: N = 1036. PRJ: peer-reviewed journal AQ: academically qualified; BQ: bridge-qualified; PQ: professionally qualified.

^aThe composite mean is based on averaging the mean from each field.

Data analysis

To analyse the data, a binomial logistic regression was conducted to examine the effects of the independent variables on the KD outcomes (Pangarkar, 2007). As a first step, a correlation analysis identified strong relationships among several variables in our model; thus, to address concerns about collinearity (see Tabachnick and Fidell, 1996), an exploratory factor analysis was run. This showed that full-time practitioner experience and socialization loaded as a single construct in excess of 0.80, and therefore, socialization was removed from the model. Table 4 reports the results of the four binomial logistic regression models.

Table 4.

Study 1: Binominal logistic regressions predicting KD outcomes.

Model	PRJ (4+)	PRJ (1–3)	Book	Engagement
Institutional mission	–0.806*** (0.094)	–0.755*** (0.103)	–0.229* (0.092)	0.061 (0.101)
Terminal degree	1.036*** (0.206)	1.148*** (0.212)	–0.241 (0.207)	–0.090 (0.206)
Practitioner experience	–0.043 (0.145)	–0.205 (0.175)	0.006 (0.142)	0.895*** (0.152)
Discipline	–0.029 (0.060)	–0.109 (0.071)	0.455*** (0.061)	0.388*** (0.067)
Gender	0.109 (0.140)	0.056 (0.163)	–0.203 (0.137)	–0.091 (0.148)
Career stage (tenured)	0.960*** (0.222)	0.786** (0.258)	0.867*** (0.220)	–0.022 (0.238)
Title	0.100 (0.099)	0.134 (0.116)	0.171 (0.095)	0.052 (0.102)
Constant	–0.126 (0.360)	1.154** (0.405)	–2.157*** (0.372)	–2.899*** (0.399)
Percentage correct	59.0	78.0	56.0	74.1
χ ²	208.27***	169.824***	170.071***	90.395***
df	7	7	7	7
–2 Log likelihood	1329.72	1027.51	1385.64	1208.14
Cox and Snell R²	0.168	0.139	0.139	0.077
Nagelkerke R²	0.225	0.213	0.187	0.112

Note: N = 1036. Betas reported. SEs are in parentheses. KD: knowledge dissemination; PRJ: peer-reviewed journal; SE: standard error.

*p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001.

Overall, based on the Nagelkerke R² results, all models report to be a good fit for the data. Moreover, the omnibus tests using χ² statistics were all significant, suggesting that there is a significant relationship between the independent and dependent variables in these models. Interestingly, discipline is a significant factor only for book publishing and active professional engagement, whereas institutional mission and terminal degree influence academic-oriented KD through PRJs. Career stage is a significant influence on all models except active professional engagement.

Based on these results, we conducted a post hoc test to explore the relationship between practitioner experience, discipline and active professional engagement. To do this, we completed a univariate contingency analysis (Near et al., 1978), including a χ² test (Burke and Moore, 2003), to test how practitioner experiences and discipline influence professional engagement (see Table 5 for these results).

Table 5.

Study 1: KD outlet by faculty socialization (%).

Variable	Accounting	Finance	Law	Social work	‘Other’ business	χ ²	p
PRJ 1–3
AQ	75.4	86.0	92.4	78.2	85.3	11.164	0.025
BQ	87.5	71.0	81.6	73.7	85.8	7.615	0.107
PQ	43.5	45.5	81.0	45.5	47.9	9.224	0.056
PRJ 4+
AQ	49.2	60.5	76.1	55.2	69.9	19.139	0.001
BQ	58.3	58.1	59.8	61.6	65.8	1.279	0.865
PQ	19.6	22.7	61.9	9.1	33.8	15.762	0.003
Book
AQ	16.4	16.3	80.4	60.9	40.6	106.764	0.000
BQ	79.2	83.9	36.8	44.4	53.3	30.023	0.000
PQ	32.6	28.6	66.7	27.3	31.0	10.498	0.033
Engagement
AQ	13.1	9.3	22.8	34.5	12.9	28.608	0.000
BQ	25.0	22.6	31.0	54.1	41.7	17.348	0.002
PQ	17.4	18.2	42.9	45.5	32.4	8.111	0.000

Note: N = 1036. KD: knowledge dissemination; PRJ: peer-reviewed journal; AQ: academically qualified; BQ: bridge-qualified; PQ: professionally qualified.

The results show significant variance across professional programmes in 9 of 12 KD post hoc tests. For example, regarding PRJ publishing (1–3), AQ faculty in law, at 92.4%, are the most active, while AQ accounting faculty are the least active at 78.2% (χ² = 11.164, p = 0.025). However, we see no significant variance across BQ or PQ faculty in PRJ publishing (1–3) in any of the disciplines.

With regard to PRJ publishing (4+), AQ law faculty are the most active (76.1%), with AQ accounting faculty the least active (49.2%) (χ² = 19.139, p = 0.001). Regarding PQ faculty and PRJ (4+), law faculty are also the most active at 61.9% compared to 9.1% of social work faculty (χ² = 15.762, p = 0.003). There was no significant difference across the disciplines for BQ faculty.

Regarding book publishing, AQ law faculty are the most active at 80.4%, compared to 16.3% of AQ finance faculty (χ² = 106.764, p = 0.000). Interestingly, BQ law faculty are the lowest (36.8%) in book publishing compared to 83.9% of BQ finance faculty (χ² = 30.023, p = 0.000). Finally, PQ law faculty are most active at 66.7%, compared to 27.3% of social work faculty (χ² = 10.498, p = 0.033).

Regarding active engagement in practice, it is observed that BQ faculty are often the most engaged in practice (law being the exception). For example, 54.1% of BQ social work faculty are engaged in practice compared to 22.6% of BQ finance faculty (χ² = 8.111, p = 0.000). When we look at AQ faculty, social work faculty are the most engaged at 34.5%, compared to 9.3% of AQ finance faculty (χ² = 17.348, p = 0.002).

This analysis also highlights differences between micro-level variables and KD outcomes in our sample, both within disciplines (see Table 5) and across disciplines (see Table 6). Consistent with the regression analysis, it confirms that those faculty possessing a terminal degree (AQ and BQ) are more likely to engage in PRJ publishing and those faculty with experience in their professional field (PQ and BQ) are more likely to be engaged in their field as faculty members. BQ faculty are the most consistently engaged in all three KD outlets.

Table 6.

Study 1: Faculty socialization by KD outlet (%).

Variable	AQ	BQ	PQ	χ ²	p
PRJ 1–3	84.5	80.3	50.3	92.410	0.000
PRJ 4+	65.3	62.0	30.4	69.073	0.000
Book	43.7	48.8	35.3	8.557	0.014
Engagement	17.0	39.7	28.7	61.237	0.000

Note: N =1036. KD: knowledge dissemination; PRJ: peer-reviewed journal; AQ: academically qualified; BQ: bridge-qualified; PQ: professionally qualified.

For example, 49.2% of AQ and 58.3% of BQ faculty in accounting had published four or more articles, compared to 19.6% of PQ faculty. The book publishing trend varied slightly. In business fields, BQ faculty were more likely to be engaged in book publishing. For example, 83.9% of BQ finance professors had been engaged in book publishing, compared to 16.3% of AQ faculty. In law and social work, AQ faculty were more likely to engage in book publishing when compared to BQ or PQ faculty. For example, 80.4% of legal AQ faculty were engaged in book publishing compared to 36.8% of BQ faculty and 66.7% of PQ faculty. Lastly, active engagement in their profession shows a relatively consistent trend in that BQ faculty were more likely to engage in their profession than either AQ or PQ faculty. The exception to this was law, where 42.9% of PQ faculty were engaged in their profession, compared to 31% of BQ and 22.8% of AQ faculty.

Study 2: Professional programme recruitment analysis

Our first study explored the macro- and micro-level institutional forces that influence KD outcomes among existing faculty. However, one of the limitations of studying existing faculty is that the current faculty complement reflects the impact of the historical decisions and strategic priorities of an institution. Therefore, our supplemental study seeks to address this gap by analysing the current strategic priorities of these professional programmes. To do so, we follow Finch et al. (2016b: 700), who argue that existing faculty recruitment criteria offer an important insight into the current and future strategic priorities of an institution:

Faculty job advertisements are tangible manifestations of recruiting intentions and are approved by multiple levels of university governance, including faculty recruiting committees, senior administrators and university human resource managers. Moreover, recruiting advertisements signal the foundational knowledge, skills, and competence required for the particular job.

On this basis, we compare a sample of Canadian and American tenure-track faculty recruitment advertisements in four professional programmes and one professionalized discipline.⁸ We specifically limit our study to tenure-track faculty positions because it can be argued that they reflect the mission of the university (Adler and Harzing, 2009; Palmer and Short, 2008), as opposed to non-tenure-track positions which are often a reaction to short-term skill needs or budgets (Figlio et al., 2013).

Variables

The dependent variables associated with faculty qualifications were based on academic training and practitioner experience, following the coding used by Finch et al. (2016b). A recruitment advertisement was coded as needing academic qualifications when a terminal degree was required. An advertisement was classified as needing professional qualifications when practitioner experience in the discipline was required. In addition, an advertisement was coded as needing scholarly qualifications when the posting required a publication record. Finally, an advertisement was coded as needing teaching qualifications when teaching experience was required. For consistency, the study 2 code book followed the same format as study 1 for institutional mission (research-intensive, comprehensive and primarily undergraduate), faculty rank (instructor/lecturer, assistant, associate, full and other) and faculty socialization (AQ, PQ and BQ).

Sampling procedures

The sampling procedures for study 2 followed the process used by Finch et al. (2016b), who study recruitment postings of US business schools. In the first step, advertisements were collected from employment websites specializing in higher education or focusing on a specific professional programme. Two examples include HigherEdJobs (http://www.higheredjobs.com/) and AKADEUS (https://www.akadeus.com/). All advertisements were organized by school to minimize the risk of duplicating postings listed on multiple websites. Three of the authors independently coded 50 job postings (Backhaus, 2004; Wu et al., 2010). The coders then met to review each posting to align on areas of inconsistency, following the guidelines of Wong et al. (1995). The pilot coding yielded an acceptable inter-coder reliability of 0.87 (Wong et al., 1995). From this pilot, a code book was developed to ensure consistent procedures and definitions for all variables. The remaining sample was then coded by two researchers.

Results

The final study 2 sample includes accounting (n = 43), finance (n = 32), law (n = 47), social work (n = 73) and ‘other business’ (n = 243). Overall, 43.4% of the postings were from research-intensive universities, 30.8% from comprehensive universities and 25.8% from undergraduate universities. The assistant professor position was the most common posting in our sample (68.2%). With regard to qualifications, 83.3% of the postings identified the need for a terminal degree, 53.6% previous practitioner experience and 59.1% previous teaching experience. Finally, 20.5% of the postings explicitly identified evidence of a publication track record. AQ faculty were sought by 44.5% of the postings, PQ faculty by 16.9% and BQ faculty by 38.6% (see Table 7 and Table 8 for a summary of the sample by area). Figure 3 provides a comparison of the sample by discipline based on the requirements for a terminal degree and practitioner experience.

Table 7.

Study 2: Sample profile (%).

Variable	Accounting	Finance	Law	Social work	‘Other’ business	Composite mean^a
Type of university
Research-intensive	16.3	21.9	53.2	20.0	10,7	25.8
Comprehensive	67.4	37.5	46.8	76.7	38.3	30.8
Undergraduate	16.3	40.6	0.0	3.3	51.0	43.4
Faculty rank
Instructor/Lecturer	0.0	0.0	12.8	1.4	0.0	1.6
Assistant Professor	46.5	87.5	19.1	63.9	80.2	68.2
Associate Professor	37.2	6.3	25.5	22.2	7.0	14.4
Full Professor	4.7	3.1	38.3	8.3	3.3	8.0
Other	11.7	3.1	4.2	4.2	9.5	7.8
Faculty qualification
Terminal degree	88.4	81.3	76.6	98.6	79.3	83.3
Practitioner experience	67.2	24.5	60.0	95.1	40.2	57.4
Teaching experience	69.8	34.4	87.2	89.0	46.1	59.1
Scholarly publication	4.7	18.8	76.6	0.0	18.9	4.7
Socialization category
AQ faculty	25.6	71.9	29.8	1.4	60.1	44.5
PQ faculty	11.6	18.8	23.4	1.4	21.0	16.9
BQ faculty	62.8	9.4	46.8	97.3	18.9	38.6

Note: N = 944. AQ: academically qualified; BQ: bridge-qualified; PQ: professionally qualified.

^aThe composite mean is based on averaging the mean from each field.

Table 8.

Comparison of faculty qualifications and KD outlet.

	Discipline
	Accounting	Finance	Law	Social work	‘Other’ business
Faculty/qualifications
Terminal degree	High	High	High	High	High
Practitioner experience	High	Low	High	High	Low
Teaching experience	High	Low	High	High	Medium
Scholarly publication	Low	Low	High	Low	Low
KD outlet
PRJs	Medium	Medium	High	Medium	High
Books	High	High	Medium	Medium	Medium
Engagement	Low	Low	High	High	Low

KD: knowledge dissemination; PRJ: peer-reviewed journal.

Figure 3.

Professional programme recruitment criteria.

Data analysis

Following Finch et al. (2016b), we used a χ² test to assess the relationships between the groups. In doing so, the expected counts were compared to the observed counts. The χ² statistic tests specifically the differences in each of the four professional programmes (and ‘other’ business). Statistical significance is assessed at the p < 0.05 level. The results indicated a significant difference in recruitment criteria across the four professional programmes and ‘other’ business: requirement for a doctorate (χ² = 17.469, p = 0.002), requirement for practitioner experience (χ² = 113.189, p = 0.000), requirement for teaching experience (χ² = 116.424, p = 0.000) and requirement for publishing record (χ² = 69.613, p = 0.000). Our testing also shows the areas are significantly different by socialization category (χ² = 173.552, p = 0.000). For example, 97.3% of social work faculty postings were BQ (AQ = 1.4%), compared to 9.3% for finance (AQ = 71.5%) and 46.8% for law (AQ = 29.8%).

Discussion and conclusion

There is a deeply rooted scholarly debate between rigour and relevance. Building on previous work, this study was framed around two research questions that consider both the macro (university and programme) and micro (academic training and practitioner experience) variables that influence scholarship across different professional programmes:

What macro- and micro-level forces shape the KD practices of scholars in business programmes?

Do these factors influence the KD practices in other social science–based professional disciplines?

Focusing this article on professions is an important contribution, as professions use the education of their potential members to achieve a number of professional ends, including transferring knowledge and skills, socialization, gatekeeping, building credibility with the public and maintaining quality standards.

We first used the data gathered from our sample of faculty members to analyse how professional context, institutional pressures, academic training and practitioner experience influence choice of KD outcomes. We then used data gathered from a sample of recruitment advertisements for tenure-track faculty members in professional programmes to assess whether those programmes reinforce existing tensions through the recruitment of new faculty.

Housing professional programmes in universities provides professions with a space to build a defensible knowledge base, legitimacy as an educating body and the ability to claim scientific and academic rigour. The faculty in professional programmes play a critical role in maintaining the legitimacy and authority of their associated professions, as they hold responsibility for both building the profession’s knowledge base and educating, socializing and gatekeeping the profession’s potential future members. These faculty members are required to engage with the university to maintain the legitimacy of the professional programme as an academic entity and to develop successful careers. At the same time, they also need to serve the knowledge and education-based needs of their profession – needs which often compete with university-based requirements.

Our results do not support the assertion that the rigour versus relevance gap is due to academics working with different logics from practitioners. Rather, our evidence shows it is far more nuanced than that. Specifically, we identify institutional factors, rooted in both the profession and the history of individual faculty members that influence KD outcomes. Consistent with previous studies (e.g. Bennis and O’Toole, 2005; Finch et al., 2017), BQ faculty play a bridging role by engaging in diverse KD outcomes when compared to their AQ and PQ peers (see Table 7). This is particularly evident when comparing business faculty to both law and social work. Law faculty had the highest proportion of PRJ articles, while law and social work had the highest number of books and were the most engaged with practising professionals. Thus, law was the highest in quadrant 1 (PRJs) and social work and law were higher than the business disciplines in quadrants 2 and 3 of Table 1 (books and professional engagement). These findings suggest there is no significant barrier in the knowledge transfer between academia and practice in the disciplines of law and social work (Gulati, 2007). However, the overall results suggest that business schools, and their respective professional disciplines, are struggling to bridge the rigour–relevance quadrants identified in Table 1.

These results indicate that the level of engagement a professional programme has with its academic and professional communities lies on a continuum and varies greatly by profession. The position of the profession on this continuum, thus, influences both KD outcomes by scholars and faculty recruitment criteria. On the one side of the continuum are professions in which academia and the profession are highly integrated. For example, in social work 50% of the faculty are BQ and 97% of the recruitment postings seek candidates with both a terminal degree and practitioner experience. Moreover, 55.8% of social work faculty have 4+ publications, 56.3% are engaged in book publishing and 44.9% are actively engaged in practice. On the other end of the continuum are disciplines in which academia and the profession are distinct ‘worlds’. In finance, only 22.3% of faculty are BQ and only 9.4% of the postings sought a terminal degree and practitioner experience (whereas 71.9% of recruitment postings sought AQ scholars). In addition, 54% of finance faculty have published 4+ papers but only 18.1% have engaged in book publishing, and only 13.7% engage in their profession. Interestingly, the ‘other’ business disciplines have a greater integration between academia and their professional context than both the accounting and finance professions in our study. For example, 25.5% of these faculty are BQ (compared to 18.3% in accounting) and 23.2% are engaged in their profession (compared to 22.9% in accounting). Interestingly, 62.8% of recruitment postings in accounting seek BQ faculty, suggesting a proactive desire by accounting as a discipline to build bridges between academia and practice.

Implications for higher education

The findings for both law and social work suggest that it is possible for faculty to integrate academic and practitioner experience and to be productive scholars while also serving their professional community. Historically, AACSB-accredited business programmes have approached faculty credentials as dichotomous with faculty being either AQ or PQ. Moreover, administrators and accreditation bodies in business programmes evaluate faculty composition at an aggregated level. An example of this is the minimum proportion of faculty in research-intensive schools who must possess a PhD. The findings of this study offer insight into the important role that BQ faculty can play in bridging between academia and practice. Specifically, the findings in study 1 suggest that faculty tend to gravitate to KD that aligns with their socialization. Therefore, AQ faculty in business programmes gravitate towards academic KD and PQ faculty towards practitioner KD. However, BQ faculty across all professional areas demonstrate an ability to move back and forth between academic and practitioner KD. This finding provides support for the new AACSB Standard 15, introduced in 2013, which recognizes that the synthesis of academic and professional credentials evolves over a career and that together they can enhance specific outcomes. As a result, these findings show that business schools, following the lead of both law and social work, should adopt a two-pronged strategy – support transitioning AQ faculty to BQ and recruit new BQ faculty.

Developing BQ faculty

Proposing that current AQ faculty should simply put additional emphasis on transforming to become BQ faculty is naive. While research (Adler and Harzing, 2009; Gardner, 2009; Link et al., 2008) identifies macro and micro institutional variables, such as discipline, tenure and promotion criteria, as significantly influencing faculty behaviour, our research suggests that the transition is more complex than simple incentives. As noted, an individual’s personal history, including academic training and practitioner experience, influences his or her KD outcomes. This is consistent with the findings of Hughes et al. (2011: 48), who identified that faculty must be both ‘willing and able’ to engage different audiences. In other words, incentivizing AQ faculty to engage in more practitioner-oriented KD may facilitate the ‘willing’ but not the ‘able’. Incentivizing PQ faculty to engage in more scholarly outcomes will be met with similar barriers. Therefore, if administrators wish to expand the KD outcomes of existing AQ or PQ faculty, they will have to look beyond traditional incentives and focus on developing the ‘able’ to bridge different audiences. One approach may be to incentivize collaboration between BQ, AQ and PQ faculties with the goal of supporting the development of their peers with different (but complementary) personal histories.

Recruiting new BQ faculty

Simply stating the goal of hiring new BQ faculty is far easier said than done. This is because faculty hiring committees are composed of existing faculty, and as Finch et al. (2016b) demonstrate, their hiring criteria tend to mirror the credentials and composition of current faculty. Thus, for example, hiring committees from research universities prioritize academic qualifications over practice. Therefore, business schools that seek to hire more BQ faculty must define an overt process to mitigate this mirroring phenomenon. This could be as simple as introducing a requirement for business schools to define and weigh the different faculty qualifications relative to business school goals.⁹

Limitations and future research

The scope of this study offers only one depiction of these four professions and the measures used in the two studies. For example, the study does not consider professions such as medicine or engineering. Moreover, students and a university’s education mandate, although critical to the university, are not central to this study. In addition, we acknowledge, there may be variances associated with the PRJ publications across different disciplines, and therefore this may influence the ability to compare PRJ outcomes across the disciplines. Book publishing is also challenging to assess. First, the support for book publishing as a form of KD varies by discipline. Second, books serve multiple audiences – for example, some books may focus on a specific community, like a textbook for students, while others may appeal to a broader audience ranging from academics to practitioners and policymakers. Future research may seek to compare faculty from these different professions based on the type of scholarship, such as the Scholarship of Discovery, the Scholarship of Application, the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, and the Scholarship of Integration (Boyer 1990; Glassick et al., 1997).

Though we followed rigorous and recognized sampling procedures, there are limitations to our sample that must be acknowledged. In study 1, we examined faculty at Canadian universities: Future research should expand this into an international sample to compare how the results may vary depending on culture or policy differences. Moreover, for study 1, we selected only universities with websites that had significant information about faculty, most notably up-to-date CVs. Finally, we do not claim that our business programme sample is representative of the global business programme landscape. In particular, it is over-represented by research-intensive universities (whose business programmes possess AACSB accreditation).

For study 2, our sample of Canadian and US recruitment postings is limited by size and available postings by each profession. As a result, some samples are small and therefore we do not suggest external validity. Future research should consider methods to expand the available sample size; for example, looking at international data collection to allow a cross-cultural comparison. In addition, scholars should explore the longitudinal trends in both KD outcomes and faculty recruitment across these disciplines. This will provide a deeper understanding of how changing institutional dynamics may influence the findings.¹⁰

This initial look at the professional programme within the university raises many more questions than it answers. The complexity of the situation invites future research in myriad directions, including, to name but a few, a deeper, qualitative exploration of how faculty in professional programmes perceive their roles within the academy and within their professions; how faculty in non-professional programmes view their professional colleagues; how practising professionals perceive their academic colleagues; a definition of profession from the academic discourse; the unique role of BQ faculty in professional programmes; and how to support faculty in professional programmes as they work to contribute to both the academy and their profession. We encourage scholars and educators to explore these questions, with the goal of creating an environment that supports the development of scholarship that is both rigorous and relevant.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Appendix

Table 1A.

Example of professional requirements in Canada.^a

Criteria	Accounting	Finance	Law	Social work	Marketing	Human resources
Independent authority	Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada	Securities Commission (provincial). IIROC Canadian Financial Analyst Institute Canadian Securities Institute	Law Society (provincial)	College of Social Work (provincial)	Canadian Marketing Association	Human Resources Professionals Association
Mandatory process to certify knowledge	Must pass the CPA exam to practise as an accountant in Canada	Licensing done by provincial Securities Commission Must pass the Canadian Securities Course Must pass the CFA level 1 exam to use CFA designation Three-year professional development plan including mandatory course work	Must pass provincial bar exam to practise law. Complete minimum supervised hours in practice. Three-year professional development plan	No exam requirement Must be a registered social worker to practise social work in Canada Complete minimum supervised hours in practice.	No mandatory regulatory/legal requirements to practise as a marketer in Canada	No mandatory regulatory/legal requirements to practise as a human resource professional in Canada
Optional process to certify knowledge	None	CFA levels 2 and 3 Personal Financial Planner Chartered Investment Manager Chartered Securities Wealth Professional Estate and Trust Professional	None	None	Complete Certified Marketing Specialist programme	Must pass National Knowledge Exam Recertify every 3 years Must have been a practising HR professional in 3 of past 10 years
University degree requirement	University degree	None, but must complete specialized course work	Law degree from an accredited law school	Degree in social work (undergraduate or graduate)	None	University degree
Mandatory professional ethics	CPA Code of Ethics & Standards of Professional Conduct	CFA Code of Ethics & Standards of Professional Conduct	Rules of Professional Conduct	Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice	None	None
Optional professional ethics	None	None	None	None	CMA Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice (organization level)	CMA Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice (organization level)

Note: CPA: Chartered Professional Accountants; CFA: Certified Financial Analyst; CMA: Chartered Management Accountants; IIROC: Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada.

^aProfessional requirements may vary by province.

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